Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: hall@vice.ico.tek.com (Hal Lillywhite) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Sources for Demonology Message-ID: Date: 22 Feb 90 09:11:51 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR. Lines: 67 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article bgsuvax!kutz@cis.ohio-state.edu (Kenneth J. Kutz) writes: >ON GODHOOD (SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION): > >Peck: "What are we growing toward? Where is the end point, the goal of > evolution? What is it that God wants from us?... For no matter how > much we like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving > God and really think about it eventually come to a single terrifying > idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We > are growing toward Godhood. God is the goal of evolution." > - page 269 The Road Less Travelled >... > "And the Serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For > God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall > be open, and ye shall be as gods." > - Genesis 3: 4-5 You might want to be careful using this particular scripture to refute Peck's idea. Just because Satan says it does not make it false and he will gladly mix a little truth in his temptation to make us swallow the lie that goes with it. This is a perfect example. Satan really claims 2 things here: 1. You shall not surely die. 2. Your eyes will be opened and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil. The first claim is patently false, they did surely die. However the second claim, the one similar to Peck's thesis, is not only true but is validated by God himself later in the same chapter, "...the man is become as one of us to know good and evil..." (Gen 3:22) I think we can learn 2 things from this account of Satan's lie and God's response to it: 1. Any source, no matter how despicable, can occasionally get something right. (Surely there are few less trustworthy sources than Satan.) Therefore we need not reject something just because we don't like the source. 2. A few isolated bits of truth do not confirm a source as truthful. Before we accept a source as reliable we need to investigate it fully. I think that what we should do is investigate all ideas regardless of the source. These ideas should be accepted or rejected on their own merits, not by blatant appeal to authority. The only exception would be a direct revelation from God and even then I think He wants us to try to understand it, not just blindly accept it. "Prove all things, hold fast that which is good." (1 Thes 5:21) I would extend this to all Peck's ideas as well. His popularity with "New-age" people, his comments on someone later condemned by the Catholic Church etc. are not the issue. Even his past record is an issue only as a guide to how competent he is. Examine his (and others) works on the evidence. Do they withstand scrutiny? [It seems pretty clear that Gen 3:22 does not approve of man's knowing good and evil. It says "he's already become independent of us in judging good and evil, now before he does something even worse let's put a stop to all this". In context I'd say what God is objecting to is man developing his own understanding of good and evil independent of God's. --clh]